Published: Just now
Two-thirds of the Earth’s glaciers are expected to have melted away by the year 2100 if warming continues as it is today, according to a study published in the journal Science. But the damage can be limited if the heating is reduced.
If the world can reduce future warming by just a few tenths of a degree and meet international targets — which is technically possible but unlikely, according to many scientists — just under half of the glaciers will disappear, according to the study. This instead of two-thirds of the glaciers if development continues as it is today.
It is mostly small but well-known glaciers that are heading towards their demise.
– For many small glaciers, it is too late, says one of the authors, Regine Hock at the University of Oslo and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
– But globally, our results clearly show that every degree of global temperature plays a role in keeping as much ice as possible in the glaciers.
According to the researchers, in an unlikely scenario with several degrees of warming, 83 percent of the glaciers will probably disappear by the year 2100.
The research team has made simulations to calculate the number of glaciers that would disappear, how many trillions of tons of ice would melt and how much it would affect sea level when the global average temperature change is 1.5, 2.0, 3.0 or 4.0 degrees Celsius.